Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/166

 140 by the purchase of the farm which he holds within ninety miles of Hobart Town, he would leave it and come here." He is seven miles from the nearest visiting neighbour, and he cannot send his flocks out without four men to protect them; neither do they multiply as he expected, owing to mismanagement, casualties, or theft; and the climate he describes as very variable. The thermometer is sometimes 125° in the day, and only 45° at night, and the distance inland very inconvenient. It has quite reconciled Mrs. Tanner to this place, where the society is good and the climate delightful.

23rd.—Would you believe that I have a monkey in my room constantly, and placed on my table at dinner time!!! This name is given here to a sort of earthen jar for holding water, and which from its porousness keeps the water cool by evaporation. * *  I was going to bed when a soldier was sent to say that Captain Irwin, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Peel, and his son, had arrived at Captain Irwin's, on the other side of the river, and to know how many beds I could make up. I was able to accommodate two of the party.

25th.—The Messrs. Burgess were here this evening on their way from Freemantle; their friends have sent them pork, beef, flour, rum, cheese, butter, and other things; the pork they are selling at eight or nine guineas a cask; flour